Blog Design Or Content

This will be a hot topic along other many webmaster. Does a good design can attract your readers more attention or your post that derive it more?. They were so many arguments about that.

Content Should Lead Design

Despite the title above, I’m not going to “Design vs Content” path.There are many times when they’re at odds, but in my mind they go hand and hand and are both important. The degree of importance really depends on the projects goals and audience.

A great design with horrible content is pointless, and great content can be dragged down by a poor design. I think that is fairly obvious. What is important to note is that content almost always should lead design, and by design here I mean the “container” of the content. As part of that, content should be “designed” as well. I realize that might not make sense right away, so let me illustrate.

When you start a project you’ve got goals. With most Web projects those goals relate to some sort of content. That content can be a number of things. It could be textual information, a task-based process, images, sound, even a graphic design. In an ideal world you’d have written, programmed, gathered, edited, etc. that content before you got to the “design” stage.

With Web sites this is especially true. However, what usually happens that that you design first and slap, plunk, pour, or plop the content in later. Now, tell me, how does that make sense? Without content, what sense is design? I don’t know either, but look at the hundreds of thousands of Web sites our there that were launched, and continue to languish, in this very way

Nail Your Post Content First

I’ve got a theory about content and publishing on the Web. Put simply, I think that if your content is good people will read and get use from it. Part of what makes good content is good content design. What I mean by that is good writing, in the case of prose, for example. It takes time and practice to become a good writer. Shouldn’t someone put some effort into that before they go all crazy with visual design?

I think so, if one has to make a choice. Now, having said that, good visual and interaction design, can greatly enhance the effectiveness of content. But it’s damn near impossible to do right with out real content to work with. And, yeah, I don’t think “lorem ipsum” counts as real content.Real content can help direct and lead a design, resulting in a better end product.

Conclusion

If you’re working on a project that is delivering content in some way, get that content sorted before you get too far with design.
With a content driven site, I think it’s perfectly fine to just get in there and start writing and get the design sorted down the road.Spending time of design before I’ve got the content worked out, in most cases, would be a drain of creative energy.

If you’re concerned, you can always get the content prepared in private, then design, then launch. I think for some projects this is perfect. Again, what’s important is just getting that content to work with before you do to much design work. With other projects there can be benefits to “just getting it up.” I think a site with good content can get pretty far with an “average” design. Proper design can come later and hopefully add to an already good experience.

There are risks and benefits to both ways. Knowing your audience will help you decide and is key to getting the most out of your content anyway. With a content driven Web site (as most sites are) the content, not the visual design, is what will make or break you. Both are important, but to be done right, the core—the content itself—needs to be designed and nailed before you get to the rest.

What Do You Think

In any-case, I’d love to hear what y’all think. I’d really like to hear from those who like to make sure a site is “perfected” before it’s launched. I think this is where most of any disagreement lies. I feel that the Web moves too quickly to spend to much time trying getting everything perfect, but I can see the other side as well. An ideal project would have content and design nailed before anyone saw it, I just wonder, who has time for that in a world when there is no such thing as perfect?